Monthly Archives: September 2009

I love this whimsical little idea! Print out the cardboard bunnies and cabbages, add a marble to make each bunny roll, and bowl! The Toymaker offers the printout and TONS more wonderful stuff. What fun!

Today, I pulled out some small cardboard boxes, cut some windows and doors in them and set up the kids to paint.

They had a great time painting. Then we dried the wet spots with a hair dryer and the kids turned the boxes into houses for their stuffed animals. Megan set them on top of each other and declared that they were condos!

What a fun idea! I’ll be they looked fabulous when they were finished. And what beautiful girls. 🙂

My friend Tiffany thinks I have a very loud family. When we come visit, she sometimes gives me that "how do you survive the noise?" look and then afterwards she brags about how she can hear the ticking of the clock in her nice quiet house once we’re gone again.

It’s true. We are LOUD.

We all talk far too much. We are all rather enthusiastic people. We are all even prone to doing things like bursting into song (usually made up on the spot and very, very silly). And yes, sometimes we yell and shriek and argue and holler. But mostly we talk, sing and laugh.

With the exception of Alex. Alex is not one of those two year-olds who can recite the pledge of allegiance and name every dinosaur. He’s one of those two year-olds who mostly grunts and points and chooses purple for everything since it’s the only color he can say.

So Alex likes to hoot.

Alex likes to hoot when he’s angry, bored, interested, happy or just about any other emotion. It can be very hard to handle when you’re trying to catch the last 5 minutes of your favorite TV show or talking to your mother-in-law on the phone. Luckily I have the kind of mother-in-law who’ll happily talk to a happy (or unhappy) hooter on the phone when that comes up.

Anyway……… (did I mention I talk a lot?)

Today Alex and I were hooting together and at one point I’m pretty sure we alarmed some passers-by but we had such fun! It can be rather annoying to have a small child shouting all the time, but when you just abandon any leftover need for peace and quiet and just join in on the mayhem it can be downright delicious.

We shrieked. We yelped. We hooted. We hollered. We made strange beeping sounds at the top of our lungs. He smiled so wide he probably strained something. He even fell over with happiness a few times. And I’m still grinning.

One of the mamas over at Roots and Wings has put together a fantastic list of fun toys and activities to create with preschoolers. All of them incorporate Sensory Integration and they’re especially suited for kids with autism and other special needs, but SI tools help all children focus, calm down, feel better and just have fun. A lot of these will even be fun for older kids.

Happy Monday! Let’s start the week off with something really fun. Here’s a few ideas….

1. Go on a leaf gathering walk and gather bags full of beautiful leaves that are still pliant and just starting to turn beautiful colors. Attach them to lengths of ribbon with glue dots (or use a needle to thread the ribbon through) to hang from curtain rods for a beautiful fall decoration.

2. Find a friend with an apple tree going to waste (so many people just leave the fruit to fall and rot!) and offer to swap an apple pie for getting to gather lots of unwanted apples. Make up tons of apple goodies and freeze some prepared apples for winter goodies.

3. Check the community events calendar of your local paper together and find one event that sounds like fun to attend as a family.

4. Go on a treasure hunt walk. Leave clues ahead of time leading to a small prize back home, and lead the kids all over the neighborhood.

5. Have a Ten Good Deeds Day. Each family member picks 10 things to do for others (strangers or loved ones) and writes them down. When the last one is done, everybody celebrates with a little group reward. Try to log the good deeds in a special place so you can look back on them later.

6. Put birthday candles in dinner and let your little ones blow them out again and again.

7. Find a way to ride a train, a city bus, a tractor or some other vehicle that’s new and exciting for your kids.

8. Bring treats to your local fire station to say hi and thank you. Chances are, the kids will get to see and do some pretty nifty things. Either way, they’ll help brighten the day for some local heroes.

9. Rake leaves together and jump in them. It never loses its magic. No fall leaves where you are? Spend an afternoon making them from old newspapers, junk mail or other paper bits in the recycling bin. Use markers, paint or crayons to make them beautiful and cut out tons to throw in the air, make into crafts and "rake" in the living room.

10. Explore a local university together. Between the art, the museums, the architecture, the culture and the atmosphere, it’s a brand new world that can enchant children. Teens can get a taste for what their futures could look like and little ones can just see it as a new land to explore.

We got home late from a conference and I’m beat. I had to post something fun before collapsing in bed, though, and I thought magic is always a good thing, right? :) Here’s a few fun and easy magic tricks for kids. See if your kids can master one or two and astound some friends and family.

Looking for something fun to do today? Smithsonian has organized a free museum day at hundreds of museums around the country. Visit the site to print out a coupon for free admissions for two people and to find lists of participating museums.